Pendere kodoro ti Bambari

 HRUB - Hopital Regional Universitaire de Bambari - has five pediatric units: NICU, PICU, Malnutrition, Gen Peds and "Triage" (mostly ED aspiring to be Obs unit.)  Mortality is crazy high by US standards, but given constraints, child death is simultaneously devastatingly frequent and miraculously held at bay.  I have been installed in PICU as a "specialist" since I am residency trained, which outside of the capital is a rarity.  The hospital has a reputation in town of very high quality - the best, ever!  Thanks to my sponsoring NGO, the "essential medicine" formulary is generally, mostly, in stock.  Most important,  patients receive care - in pediatrics, and surgery wards - free of charge which is not the case in internal medicine, adult ED and maternity wards.

     I am a subject of amazement and curiosity, given my relative fluency in Sango (from distant 3 years in country as a Peace Corps volunteer).  I was briefly in this town for training then elsewhere in country in the 1980s, a time of legend for the Central Africans I meet, almost all of them born during or after my time here.  I am like a ghost from a country they have heard of but not seen, when people were just poor, not killed; militias did not roam the countryside. The places I know as  Peace Corps sites are now conflict zones.  Creepy too, my last time here I was a kid.  Now they call me "Father" - when did that happen?  I forget the passage of years until I look in the mirror.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 24, 2022 at 6:14 PM

    So glad you are sharing this and I am very interested in your return to a country you were in more than 30 years ago. Many good wishes to you and I would love to talk when you return. Lisa Kiser

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousAugust 21, 2022 at 12:37 PM

      "thumbs up" imoji - ted pettus/cledus

      Delete

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